


Escape Room

by abetternameneeded



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-17 21:29:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29107098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abetternameneeded/pseuds/abetternameneeded
Summary: Alice ends up in an escape room.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 3





	Escape Room

**Author's Note:**

> This was just a weird idea I had. So I wrote it. Whether its angst or humor or both is beyond me. 
> 
> Sidenlte: I don't know how escape rooms ACTUALLY work.

The lock clicked, a somehow both unfamilar and familar sound. Alice shook her head, this had been a bad idea. She had never been a fan of locks. She hadn't actually had any in the tower, not any that she could control and then once she'd had a chpice, she didn't trust them. She was afraid that something would go wrong, she tested them sometimes to make sure they wouldn't stay locked on her. But only when she was outside, only when she knew she couldn't be trapped again. She knew that it hadn't been a lock that had done that to her, it'd been magic. But it didn't really matter, the fear was still very real. And this situation? It wasn't fun. 

"Ok," Henry took charge of the game night he had palnned. "We have to solve puzzles to get out." He jadn't meant this litterally. But Alice wasn't doing ok with the being stuck in the firsr place. She barely cllsed doors behind her if she could help it, and now she was in a locked room. "Alice, you want to help?" Henry asked her as she'd resorted to pacing around the room, at least it looked like some serial killers den and not the tower, there had been a fajrytale themed option but she'd been aware that one would bother her so much more. All she could do when she was alome in that tower was play games and talk to the things around her, trying to not dwell on the fact that she was honestly a prisoner in her own home. Papa'd never used those words, but some books certainly had. She beeded him but he hadn't been able to makw it to this particular thing. He probabaly would have thoight it throigh better than anyone actually had. Henry had called it a fun puzzle game, this was not exactly what she'd expected. 

It didn't taken Robin very long to realkze that Alice wasn't just walking around because she couldn't sit still, which was fairly normal. 

"Hey, are you ok?" Robin asked her.  
Alice shook her head and directed a comment to Henry. 

"This isn't bloody fun, mate. I think i'm going to be sick." 

She honestly had worked herself up to the point she felt a pit in her stomach. 

"You like puzzles." 

"I also really like marmelade, when i'm not in a locjed room. This is actual torture, henry." Henry looked guilty. Yeah, to him this had sounded like a fun way to kill an hour. But to someone who had actually been locked in a room for mlre than the first half of her life? She was right, this wasn't a game to her. 

"Do you want to finsih this or no?" Robin offered. It was up to Alice, if she though she could handle it then they'd try.   
Alice shook her head. She just wanted out of this room. She didn't like even knowing that she couldn't get out if she wanted to. That she had to rely on someone else to let her out. Sure she'd gotten hersdlf out of the tower but it'd taken years and it had taken its toll on her in so many ways. Her being incredibly clasutrophobic only being one of them. 

"Hey!" Robin knocked on the door.

Some sound came over whatever was making it possoble for the peraon that locked them in this room to talk to them, Alice really didn't understans every advent lf modern technology. 

"You need a hint on the first riddle?" The guy was a bit abrasivr but Alice wasn't in the mood. She just wanted out of this room. She needed out of it. 

"We want out, or I do anyway," Alice explained.

"Solve the puzzle, then." 

What? "I've got it." Robin knew Alice could easily have handked the problem but she was more preoccupied with her surroundings. "She feels trapped and wants out." 

"That's the damn point." Click. And the guy was gone. 

"Really?" Robin scoffed. It'd honestly take less time to solve the puzzle then to try to fight this asshole. 

"It's fine," Alice wasn't feeling too great. It wasn't a situation she liked being in but Alice knew what a lost cause felt like. She'd tried to out stubborn a magical barrier for years. And she tended to upset people more than she got her way talking to them, she ttied rrally but she was excited about things that no one else thought twice about, it tended to push people away. 

Henry held up the first clue. "They committed to the theme," Henry noted that the first clue was mentioning the murderes first victim and second and third. "Victim one two three they follow a book to a tee. What does that even mean?" 

"Pattern. It wants you to find a pattern," Alice was still not doing great and pacing along the sides of the room. 

"How are you not getting dizzy?" Henry asked her. 

"Practice." She did this all the time in the tower, trying to clear her thlughts or make herself tired when she hadn't slept in days. And sometimes just because she was bored. "Helps me think." 

"Ok you're honestly the only person that knows how riddles work in here."  
Henry looked around. "Are the squsielly lijes a pattern, you think?" 

"Maybe?" 

Theybdwfintley were. "Find the three that look identical and then ome kf them probably has the riddle." 

That riddle spat out another sheet of paper. 

They solved all the ridddles, Alice helping as much as she could as she tried to not feel trapped.

"Yipee you solved the escape room," the game master couldn't have been more rude ablut it. "Gather your things, thank you for attempting the escaped, feel free to come again." 

Robin opened her mouth to tell him where to shove it, in a far politer way than he really deserved. 

But alice shook jer head. "Let's just go, where'a henry?" 

They lookd over where ahenrybwas grabbing their things they hadn't been allowed to take into the room with them and jesrd him say they defintely wouldn't be returning and him overecaggerating thst it'd been the worst expereince lf their lives.   
Alice laughed a little, finally calming down as she walked outside. 

"Mate, it defintley wasn't fun but worat experience o our lives? You do know you got arrested for treason, right? Like actually?" 

"I know. Just hoping he won't do that to anyone else."

"Whatever," robin cknceded as well. "You're no longer alllwed to pick what we do for game night."

"Thw puzzle part was fun, just rhe locked room.part really was..." she paused midsentence as the pit she'd had in her stomach protested to the fact she'd been lacing too much. 

"Man, youbreally should've aimed for the floor in that room," henry half joked. 

"I am never doing one lf those again."

"That's fair. Hey, you faced your fear though," henry paused. "Wait."  
"So you have to face your fear of heights then?" 

"Remind mw never to come up with ideas while drunk ever again," Henry groaned.   
Alice laughed a little. Henry dropped alice and robin off at their apartment and then he went home.

**Author's Note:**

> Do i have any canonic evidence for hwnry's fear lf heights? No. Did it work as a narrative reason for this story? Oh yeah.


End file.
